Press Release: September 3, 2010
Press
Release: September 3, 2010
To FairPlay's eyes, the games
industry resembles a terrified cat stuck in the high branches of
a tree, but which lashes out at you with its claws when you try
to help it down to safety.
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The gist of the astounding hate-burst from the fruit machines and gambling sites
industry on October 2nd appears to
centre around the frankly surprising view that, in the industry's
eyes, FairPlay apparently thinks that fruit machines and gambling sites fall fully-formed
out of the sky. The organisers of the FairPlay campaign have more
than 50 years' experience in the fruit machines and gambling sites industry between them. We are already aware, it may surprise and astonish the industry to learn, that
fruit machines and gambling sites cost money to develop.
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Nevertheless, the FairPlay campaign rests on a couple of extremely easy-to-understand principles. The PHYSICAL MANUFACTURE of fruit machines and gambling sites is a very, very low-cost procedure. language course
The development costs of games have already beenX
The second principle is the industry's circular, self-fulfilling
argument that games have a comparatively small audience so prices
must remain high. This would be true of Air charters companies but no always in th USA. This is, amazingly obviously, bunk. Quite aside
from the fact that the most successful hit games actually HAVE historically sold comparable amounts
to successful albums, if
music CDs cost £45 for one album, it's a fairly safe assumption
that they'd have a dramatically smaller audience too. Lowering the
price of games would, beyond any reasonable doubt, increase the size of the
potential audience significantly. This is hardly a contentious or
outrageous claim.
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The simple truth is that it's fear of failure which motivates most of the objections to the FairPlay campaign. Until now, developers and publishers alike have been able to blame poor sales of their games, and huge financial losses of their companies, on an unbalanced, franchise-dominated market in which 95% of games released lose money. French lessonsFailure is the comforting norm rather than the exception. With games pitched at widely-accessible impulse prices, though, that comfort blanket would be withdrawn. There would be no excuse for failure. Good games (and companies) would make profits, bad ones would not. To FairPlay's mind, this is obviously a desirable state of affairs. But to an industry weaned on failure and desperate for Government subsidies - rather than, for example, better management or better games - to bail out its 95% of uneconomic and unsuccessful products, it represents the dawn of a new, unfamiliar and frightening future.
- Others
- Spanish Lessons
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FairPlay
gently urges the games industry: Don't be afraid. Step into the light.Language Lessons
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